Pages to Pixels

Trese eats ghosts for breakfast

In commemoration of World Book Day, and with some decent games like Dante’s Inferno and Call of Cthulhu in mind, Adam David and I sat down and started thinking about what games might be fun to play. We’ve taken a cue from Dante’s Inferno, where it took the poet being led through the underworld by Virgil, and turned him into a butt-kicking warrior out to decimate hell’s hordes, so these adaptations can be very loose so that they can serve the purposes of fun gameplay. - Carljoe Javier

Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies is one of my favorite books, both to teach and to read, and I think that it would be a blast as a game. Arguably one of the great twentieth-century novels, it has served as an inspiration for contemporary texts such as Battle Royale and Lost. Telling the story of young boys left to fend for themselves on an island while WWII rages on in the rest of the world, it exhibits the primal urges that drive man, how in society these are kept in check, and how in the wilderness we can frighteningly revert back to them. The novel tells not only a chilling story, but delves into questions of psychology and sociology as one group of boys tries to establish a civil way of living while another gives in to their ids, causing massive death and destruction.

As a game it’s easy to imagine; you choose between the two sides, Ralph’s as he tries to establish his order and take care of people, or Jack’s, as you win people over to your savage side and eventually take out Ralph. It would be a setup between building vs. destruction. If you’re Ralph, you try to build structures and provide resources for the other kids, winning them over to order while Jack tries to disrupt your progress. If you play as Jack, you take on destructive missions which, when you cause chaos, win kids over to your side. Balancing gameplay between action and RTS, LotF the game would be action-driven, but would play in all of the moral aspects that the book considers.

Fahrenheit 451

Being one book that I consider to be in the triumvirate that establishes dystopian fiction, along with 1984 and Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 has the potential, I think, to be the most action-packed among them. Books burn at the title’s temperature, and in a twisted future books are illegal, they are burned, and those in possession of books burned with them. Fahrenheit’s protagonist is Guy Montag, a “fireman” whose job it is to burn books. After a few encounters with his free-thinking younger neighbor and some events, he is led to reconsider his life and his society. He eventually turns away from his job and life and decides to jump to the other side.

In adapting this as a game, it’s easy to imagine the opening level/tutorial where we get to know the controls. You’d be Guy Montag storming a house and burning books and people. This would be reminiscent to the controversial terrorist attack on an airport in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 that forced gamers to do something morally reprehensible. Then you’d progress from that kind of fireman to wanting to get out of it, making it a game of relentless chases until you escape with the book you are protecting.

Trese

It’s hard for me to think of a local book that would be more fun to play than Budjette Tan and KaJo Baldisimo’s Trese, featuring detective of the supernatural Alexandra Trese. The series delves into the “underbelly” of Manila, showing not only the criminal elements, but how these interact with the supernatural. It’s a wonderful mix of noir, action, and horror, rendered beautifully in Baldisimo’s stylized black and white drawings.

Taking the book’s arresting visual style and transferring it to the gaming world would make for a truly new experience. A new story would have to be fashioned, one that would be more game and action-oriented, but one can imagine a number of genres that Trese as a game could fit in. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to see it falling in the survival horror genre, lining up with Silent Hill but being possibly cooler because of its characters.

“Repent Harlequin!” Said the Ticktock Man

“‘Repent Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktock Man” may be a short story, but it has the material to make it a great full length game. Yet another dystopian piece, it centers around the Harlequin, a man who wants to disrupt the dominant social order that is driven by a strict adherence to time, to the point that if you are late, time will be deducted from your life. The Harlequin, as his name implies, is a trickster who wants to point out to people how absurd their way of life is, and he does this through a series of pranks.

The short story operates on the level of satire, allusion, and an overload of wit. It experiments with form and structure, as well as content, and in adapting it for a game, some of this will inevitably lost. But the irreverent tone and biting humor could definitely be attained, and it would give gamers the chance to rewrite the game’s ending. Flying around in what was something akin to a hoverboard and causing mayhem, this game could become similar to Bioshock in its creation of a frightening dystopian world.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

One of Hemingway’s constant themes in his works was the ravages on the human soul that war takes. Perhaps best-illustrating this theme was For Whom the Bell Tolls which is a monumental novel, encompassing such great human themes as the aforementioned war, as well as love, honor, duty, and country. Set during the Spanish revolution, it follows American Robert Jordan who joins the Spanish guerrillas.

The backdrop of the war, and some good research, will provide for a unique FPS experience. Concerned with guerrilla warfare more than battlefield warfare, and saboteur work more than stomping down and decimating enemies, it could be a more technically-oriented military shooter, more concerned with battle strategy like Brothers in Arms or even Full Spectrum Warrior than a standard FPS war game.

Super Sionil sez:

Hey bastiches, Adam David here. My own humble contributions to this list stems from our own vibrant set of books, all brilliantly threshed-out in an idle afternoon drinking Irish Cream while half-heartedly contemplating professional prepubescent nudist Wii-tennis. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Textual Relations

I see this one basically as a portable brickgame – a videogame metaphor for conformity – reprogrammed in such a way that the player won’t be able to move or rotate the irregular shapes.

Happy Endings

In the tradition of the videogame point-&-click adventure adaptations of Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream and Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles, that is, a collection of short stories adapted into one videogame medley, this one being about a kid fresh out of high school striving to survive public school college undergrad ennui hell, a story that starts as a literal recovery of memory and identity – a metaphor for finding oneself as a unique adult person amidst the pethora of university conformities – that morphs into an End of the World scenario where the protagonist sets himself against waves of physical and intellectual mutilation to save, Beatrice-like, the love of his life: his girl bestfriend who refuses to see the protagonist as potential romantic interest. Will she finally see him through the rose-tinted Raybans of Love as the Apocalypse wreaks havoc across civilisation?

The Rosales Saga

This one should be a serialised RPG-adventure epic in the isometric-view school of aesthetics like Diablo and early Fallout: you get to pick between the two families, the Samsons – the peasant stock – or the Asperris – the ruling class – for your quest storyline, one that would take you through a century of actual Philippine history, from the Fil-American War to Martial Law. Complementing the RPG-adventure aspect of the game is the city simulation real-time strategy aspect, where you get to manage the economics and culture – the civilisation – of Rosales through the hundred years of story, marked by the growth of a giant tree in the plaza. I see the game time for this one to be more or less 160 hours, all told. Also: an expansion set of independent quests called Viajero. This will win industry awards, for sure.

Without Seeing the Dawn

I want this one to be a combo of RPG-adventure and genre arcade games filtered through the Guitar Hero aesthetic a la Full Throttle or Brutal Legend: it is the story about the Lost Ones, a ragtag big hair '80s punk garage band, trying to work its way to the top of the Battle of the Bands tour to get the chance to play as ultimate front act for '80s rock sensation the Dawn! Basically an '80s period piece Guitar Hero in arcade mode, and in between duels there should be a resources management interface, a fashion management interface, a genre management interface. This should also have Teddy Diaz as unlockable character.

Tom Clancy’s State of War

With expansion sets and sequels Tom Clancy’s State of War: Days of Disquiet Nights of Rage Expansion Set, Tom Clancy’s State of War 2: Killing Time in a Warm Place, Tom Clancy’s State of War 2: Empire of Memory Expansion Set, Tom Clancy’s State of War 2: My Sad Republic Expansion Set, Tom Clancy’s State of War 3: Embarrasment of Riches, Tom Clancy’s State of War 3: Woman of Am-Kaw Expansion Set, Tom Clancy’s State of War 4: The Hand of the Enemy, and Tom Clancy’s State of War the Mobile App: Great Philippine Jungle Energen Cafe. ‘Nuff said. EDITED TO ADD: Apparently, I spoke too soon. From POC Metakritiko's very own Paolo Jose Cruz: "Dude! You totally forgot the MMORPG (Tom Clancy's State of War Online: Gerilya) and the standalone prequel (Tom Clancy's State of War: America Is In The Heart)." Thank you for reminding me about these two! I completely forgot about them, and I'm blaming it on the heaving budding bosoms drenched with sweat, and the six glasses of Irish Cream.